


you take what you give (and i’ve never given a thing)

by Catherines_Collections



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anxiety, Child Neglect, Depersonalization, Depression, Dissociation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, dislocation, for like a second, three boys just trying to find themselves in each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 19:40:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13107153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: He wonders if it’s in his blood, sometimes.The inability to stay still, to stay in one place. The inability to be.The ability to wake up in a completely different place he doesn’t remember going to, but ends up at anyway.





	you take what you give (and i’ve never given a thing)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago, revised, edited, rewrite, and here we are. 
> 
> AU- where Jared and Connor and Evan are actually friends who later become something more and try to deal with their own mental illnesses together and without accepting shame from their families. 
> 
> I own nothing, cause if I did things would be much different - probably in a bad way too - but I hope you enjoy! :)

Jared’s eight.

It seems almost impossible to be alone in a house of seven, but he is nonetheless.

He’s the oldest of five siblings. Spends his days listening to his sister Jude argue with his brothers, his eyes scanning the television blankly as his Dad hides behind his office door and his mom in her minivan driving and driving.

He asks his mom once, while Artie and Beatrice fight over the legos Adam has just spilled all over the floor that Jared knows he will be told to clean up, why she’s always gone: always driving as far as the road will take her.

( _Away_ , the nasty voice he’s grown to used to hearing in his head whispers, _away from the family, away from everyone, away from you._ )

And she just smiles sadly, softly, at him and ruffles his hair, tilting his new glasses until he’s scrunching up his nose trying to adjust them without using his hands.

“Oh, little one,” she whispers, like it’s a secret between her and Jared, and Jared’s heart speeds because he’s never had a secret between his mother and him, “let’s hope you never find out.”

Her eyes are too distant when she speaks – but it’s not the same kind of distant Jared’s dad’s eyes get when he’s asking too many questions, or the same kind of distant the eye doctor gets when Jared won’t sit still. It’s not the same kind their Rabbi gets when Jared’s trying to tell him an amazing story; not the same kind Jared and his teacher both get when Alana Beck gives yet another class presentation – and she seems too far away even though she’s right in front of him.

Jared frowns, and something about the moment has him walking to hug her: something he hasn’t done since he was six, because Sam from class said big kids don’t need to hug their mom’s.

His mom just laughs and pets his hair, but when he looks up at her from where his head is nearly submerged in her skirt she’s not looking at him. She’s staring straight ahead, at a wall.

Jared wants to know what’s so great about a wall that it gets his mom’s attention where he can’t.

They stay like that for a few minutes. Jared burying his face in his mother’s skirt as his mother strokes his hair. Him holding onto her like it will keep her there; like his sheer willingness to hold her and make her stay will be enough to make her remain in the empty space she goes out of her way to avoid.

It doesn’t last, because nothing ever does he comes to learn, and eventually his mother is pulling him off and telling him to play with his brothers and sisters.

She waves goodbye, heading out to pick up groceries for dinner– even though Jared knows he’ll probably end up reheating last night's leftovers.

He’s already tucked in each of his siblings by the time his mom gets back.

It’s how the rest of the school years goes. And how summer break goes.

It’s how it continues to go, even after the Hansen’s move into town the next summer.

.

Something, though he won’t realize it until years later, starts when Jared’s ten.

He doesn’t think anything of it when his mom parks her car in the driveway long enough to tell them an old friend of her’s is moving back to town. Or well, he doesn’t think anything about the news. Too excited to see his mom’s car in the driveway and have her talking to him like she acknowledges him, like he’s real and she can him where his siblings and dad can’t.

He asks her all kinds of questions, of course, trying to keep her around for as long as he can. He asks about her friend, what’s her name, how’d they meet, how long have they known each other, does she have any kids, and his mom laughs like he’s something funny.

But it doesn’t matter because she seems to see him in a way his feuding siblings and busy dad can’t, so he asks and asks until she’s physically shushing him.

He doesn’t expect his mom to answer all the questions, but she does nonetheless.

Her name is Heidi. They have known each other since college which is also where they met, and yes, she has one son about Jared’s age, maybe a little younger.

Jared only processes maybe half the information, most of it discarded or going right over his head due to lack of context, but he listens until his brain finally stops him because he can’t remember the last time he saw his mom smile.

.

The Hansen’s move in down the street two weeks later.

Nothing really changes.

.

When he first meets Evan he’s at school. His mom points him out in carpool and Jared doesn’t say anything, just stares until it’s time to leave.

Evan’s shorter than him, though not by much and not for long, gangly and shy and too quiet for Jared’s loud mind.

It’s at lunch when Jared approaches him and asks, “Can I sit here?” Gesturing to Evan’s empty lunch table.

Evan, pink cheeked and getting redder by the minute, nods and so Jared takes a seat.

“My mom knows your mom,” he starts, picking the crust off his sandwich, taking note of how Evan’s stopped eating.

“Oh yeah,” Evan says, his voice so much quieter and smaller than Jared’s, “you’re Jared, right?”

Jared hums and turns to him.

“Yup. And since out moms know each other, we’re now best friends.”

He smiles when Evan laughs a little, still small and nervous but Jared’s getting there.

“Yeah,” Evan says, smiles, “okay.”

.

Sometimes, but it’s become more and more often recently and he doesn’t know what to do about it, he feels like he’s outside of his body.

Like he’s not real, like nothing’s real and maybe there’s always been a reason the kids at school avoid him and the kids at camp don’t talk to him.

It doesn’t get worse, but it doesn’t get better. Not through elementary school when Jared kept yelling and talking in class because he needed to feel seen, and not through the beginnings of middle school when he would close his eyes in first period and wake up in fourth.

Different seat, different classroom, same him: he thought he was going insane. And maybe he was, maybe he is, but he doesn’t let himself think about it. He adjusts instead.

It stays stagnant, whatever it is that makes him feel invisible and outside of himself and always trying to get away, balances through the years. And he adjusts.

Grows used to waking up, coming alive he even jokes to himself, somewhere he doesn’t remember being. Grows used to ignoring the need to feel seen, and need to get away: to run and leave and never come back, to not have to stay.

.

Meeting Connor Murphy goes like this.

Jared’s twelve and has never had someone call him out on his bullshit. His parents are both always gone, siblings don’t know any better, and Evan’s way too nice – too shy and afraid of confrontation – about everything.

So when he’s talking to Evan about something at lunch, being too loud and too mean and too something but still not feeling any of it, a kid in a black t-shirt and jacket turns around and says, “Dude, can you shut the fuck up for a second? Your friend’s about to have a heart attack.”

And sure enough, Evan’s face is extremely pale, getting paler by the second as they both turn to face the other kid.

Emo kid looks like he’s bracing himself for a fight and Evan’s trying to sink down into his chair, and maybe Jared should be mad even though he knows emo kid is completely right, but instead he can’t find the situation anything other than fucking hilarious and refreshing.

When he laughs, Evan and emo kid just stare.

“Okay,” Jared says, after the laughter finally passes, “I like you. What’s your name?”

Emo kid scowls but Evan sits up a little straighter in his chair.

“Not that I owe you anything, but it’s Connor.”

Jared nods, holds out a hand.

“Cool. I’m Jared,” he points at Evan, “and that’s Evan.”

“Okay,” Connor nods, about to turn around before Jared offers:

“Do you want to sit with us?”

Evan’s back in his chair, still pale but getting better, and Connor just sighs like the whole situation is too much.

But then he’s shrugging and gathering up his lunch to set next to Evan, sliding into the empty seat next to him.

“Okay,” Jared starts, “so, as I was saying– ”

.

Months turn to years.

Nothing changes. Everything changes.

(Too much stays the same.)

.

He gets his first car when he’s sixteen.

His dad looks at him and says, “Be careful. Don’t wreck it,” and it’s the most Jared thinks he’s said to him in months.

“I won’t.” He says back, smiling and gripping the keys tight. Mind already miles away.

.

Jared learns to hate secrets.  

He remembers reading somewhere, about how eventually everyone becomes their parents. About how no matter how different someone may think they are, there are still too many people just like you.

He remembers how his mom used to drive and drive like she was searching for something she could never find. How she would stare and smile at walls like they held something no one else could see. How she was always gone, always leaving, always running in the same ways he always seems to be.

Jared’s knuckles whiten, and he tightens his grasp on the wheel, pressing his foot on the gas until there’s nothing but _road road road_.

.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Jared starts, lying back on Evan’s bed, legs swinging and mind too distant.

“Where?” Connor asks, and he and Evan turn to stare when Jared laughs– off tune and humorless and too loud for the humble silence of the rest of the house.

“I don’t even fucking know,” he starts, and it’s a tired mixture of a mischievous smile and worn grin he lets sneak onto his face when he thinks they both aren’t looking, “let’s just, _go_.”

 

Evan stares and opens his mouth, but before he can say anything Connor is sitting up on the edge of the bed and shrugging.

“Okay. Let’s go then.”

Jared’s out of the room so fast he doesn’t have a chance to see the look Evan and Connor share behind him, but he imagines it anyway.

.

He knows Evan has bad days, knows Connor’s are more often worse than better, but he can’t bring himself to tell them about how he feels, how he’s always felt: too outside of his body, too close to dead to be even considered alive.

He doesn’t know how to tell them that he closed his eyes in one state and opened them in another–  forty miles new on the speedometer and three hours lost.

Connor has it worse, he knows, caught between an illness that carves everything about him out for days at a time, and a family not even willing to understand.

(He remembers months ago and the late-night phone call where Connor had called him and Evan crying. Talking about how none of it was worth it. How none of it mattered.

Jared doesn’t think he’s ever driven faster in his life.)

Evan has it bad, too. Nearly crippling anxiety, feeling as though everything in the world is a threat he’s yet to face. Because in a way, it is. But now he has Jared and Connor to help him face it, and now they have him. But that doesn’t heal everything.

He thinks about telling them, somewhere between the city limit and state line, his fingers itching for the phone, but then he remembers phone calls and absent parents and his hands don’t move from the steering wheel for the rest of the ride.

.

He wonders if it’s in his blood, sometimes.

The inability to stay still, to stay in one place. The inability to be.

The ability to wake up in a completely different place he doesn’t remember going to, but ends up at anyway.

But he mostly leaves that part out. It doesn’t happen enough for concern, it’s just a small fluke, a weird mind mistake, a new normal.

(Wanderlust, he’d heard his father say before, through the walls of his sibling’s bedroom, when the world was still just dark and quiet enough for him to hear.

He tries to word out himself. Mouths it to himself in the too dark room filled with too many children. He memorizes each sound and shaping each letter with his lips, and engraving the meaning on his tongue.)

He even goes as far as goggling it one night, slamming the computer shut with a groan of frustration when all that comes up are a series of Buzzfeed quizzes and poorly put together Self-help websites.

He covers his face and sits in the dark.

.

He’s seventeen, and the world’s still too small and he starts to wonder if he broke something if he would feel it.

He’s seventeen and spends most of his year behind the wheel, on the road, wondering if this is it.

The gas pedal becomes his best friend, and he doesn’t let himself think about Evan or Connor’s faces when he presses it down until it nearly breaks.

.

“There got to be more to this,” Jared says, high off his ass, burying his face in Connor’s shirt, taking Evan’s hands and holding them up to his face.

Evan smiles, soft and sweet and too sad for his beautiful face, and runs a hand through his hair.

Connor hums and pulls him closer, shifts himself into Evan’s side.

“We’ll find it.” Connor says, and squeezes Jared’s shoulder when he laughs.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! Comments and Kudos are appreciated, and I’m rhymesofblue on tumblr.


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